Immigration activists have spent the last week launching a nationwide campaign to attempt to save DACA (broadly referred to as #DefendDACA), as well as TPS — a program that protects undocumented immigrants from deportation to countries where they would face imminent physical danger if returned. One such group is NAKASEC, which earlier this month launched a 22-day, 24hr vigil in front of the White House to protect DACA and Asian American Dreamers registered under the program, as well as to protect TPS. (A live feed of the White House action can be viewed between 10am and 8pm EST here.)

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Kal Penn (left) and Jhumpa Lahiri (right) joined the rest of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities in a mass resignation in protest of the president’s remarks following the violence in Charlottesville. (Photo credit: IMDB / Wikipedia)

In a joint letter, the private members of the Committee on the Arts and the Humanities criticized the president for the president’s remarks in the wake of last weekend’s white supremacist violence, which left one woman and three police officers dead and several other civilians injured. In a blistering letter addressed to the president (that really must be read in full to be appreciated), the Committee’s members wrote:

The Administration’s refusal to quickly and unequivocally condemn the cancer of hatred only further emboldens those who wish America ill. We cannot sit idly by, the way that your West Wing advisors have, without speaking out against your words and actions.

…Supremacy, discrimination, and vitriol are not American values. Your values are not American values. We must be better than this. We are better than this. If this is not clear to you, then we call on you to resign your office, too.

The full letter (after the jump) was shared by Committee member Kal Penn on his Twitter, where it has already been retweeted nearly 9,000 times.

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To encourage better and broader civic engagement within the AAPI community in Trump’s America, #DearMyAAPIRep is a new feature that will appear semi-regularly in 2017 that will feature an open letter written to specific Asian American & Pacific Islander elected officials. Each letter will highlight an issue of particular relevance to the AAPI community and will invite a response from our elected officials.

On Friday, the power of the United States’ highest office will peacefully transfer from the nation’s first Black president and to a man who rose to prominence by fomenting a racist “whitelash” against his presidency. Over the course of the 2016 campaign, President-elect Donald Trump deployed racism, sexism, Islamophobia, homophobia, classism, ableism, threats of violence, and the promise of exclusionary immigration laws to cement his majority support among all subgroups of white voters. Today, it remains unclear exactly what legislative damage we might expect with the Trump administration – there is no need for me to list the many looming threats to our liberties and civil rights posed by Trump’s inauguration — but, it is certain that life will be much harder for people of colour under A President Donald J. Trump.

As of this morning, nearly 60 members of Congress have joined a national Congressional boycott against Trump’s inauguration. The boycott was inspired by President-elect Trump’s disdainful (and overtly racist) tweets against civil rights legend (and sitting US Representative) John Lewis. Trump ushered in Martin Luther King Day weekend celebrations with an accusation that Rep. Lewis — who grew up in Jim Crow segregation and who nearly gave his life to the Civil Rights Movement — was “all talk” and that he should focus on fixing soaring crime rates in his “falling apart” district. (In reality, Lewis represents one of the wealthiest, and least crime-ridden, districts in Georgia.) In response to this bizarre and offensive attack, Rep. Lewis mused that Trump was not “a legitimate president”, citing US Intelligence reports that Russia had deliberately influenced the election’s outcome for Trump.

In the wake of this latest Trump Twitter dust-up, members of the Congressional Black, Hispanic, and Asian Pacific American Caucuses rallied to Lewis’ defense with declarations that they would join him in a boycott of Trump’s inauguration. That movement has since spread throughout the House. Currently, four of Congress’ AAPI congressmen – including Reps. Mark Takano, Ted Lieu, Pramila Jayapal and Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC) chair Rep. Judy Chu – are participating in the boycott.

Rep. Lieu cited Trump’s history of “racist, sexist and bigoted” remarks as motivation for his decision to participate in the protest. “For me, the personal decision not to attend Inauguration is quite simple,” said Lieu. “Do I stand with Donald Trump, or do I stand with John Lewis? I am standing with John Lewis.”

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These aren’t the election results you deserve, but these are the election results you’re going to get right now (Infographic by APAICS).

2014 was a record-breaking year for Asian American and Pacific Islander political candidates: this year, 39 AAPI candidates launched a campaign for Congressional office compared to 29 in 2012 and only 8 in 2010. 22 AAPI candidates made it past their primary races compared to only 13 two years ago. Four AAPIs were running in a gubernatorial race with an additional 3 competing for the Lt. Governor’s office in Hawaii. An unprecedented 159 AAPI candidates were running for a local elected office in 26 states.

Election Night 2014 was certainly shaping up to be a big night for AAPI political representation. Sadly, this just wasn’t our year. After the jump, here’s the the breakdown of what happened last night.